Does Europe Have a Future? [Updated]

That is a question that could be repeated daily, given the steady stream of news stories like these. First, from Germany, where New Year’s Eve turned into a nightmare of sexual assault with hundreds of women being attacked by migrants, a report on several cities’ preparations for Carnival:

Cologne and Bonn carnival organisers have begun handing out rules for refugees for next week’s jollity – with warnings about women, alcohol and urinating in public.

The cities are on edge after mass sexual assaults by immigrants against hundreds of women on New Year’s Eve in Cologne. The number of complaints resulting from the frenzy in and around the main station now stands at over 820.

Printed in several languages including Arabic, the flyers read: ‘People dress up to celebrate, sing and dance together. In the carnival time everyone must deal respectfully with one another and observe the laws.
‘Bützen – that means kisses on the cheeks. Sexual approaches are not allowed! Women and men must always be in agreement. No means no!

“No means no.” That’s borrowed from American college campuses, isn’t it? Somehow I think these folks have a little farther to go.

‘Urinating in public is forbidden!’

I’m glad they cleared that up, although here, to be fair, the migrants might have some company.

In Cologne one of the points raised on the leaflet – which is printed in Arabic too – is also about alcohol, which Muslims are not supposed to consume.

It reads: ‘Many in Cologne will be drinking beer or other alcoholic beverages at carnival time, but of course there is no obligation to do so.

‘Having fun, singing and dancing can all be done as well without alcohol.’

Speaking for myself, I never did much singing or dancing without alcohol, but others may be different. The point is that if you have to start at square one with a gentle suggestion that sexual assault and public urination are frowned upon, you are probably in trouble.

Swedish police have resorted to sending undercover officers to Stockholm’s swimming pools amid a rising number of sex assaults on girls by migrants.

Plain clothes police will monitor swimming baths in the Swedish capital after ‘a few dozen’ suspected cases of sexual harassment were reported mainly by parents of teenage girls.

It comes amid reports that a number of girls said they had been sexually assaulted by young male asylum seekers at the city’s Eriksdalsbadet Olympic baths in the past three weeks.

The girls who filed complaints were all under the age of 18.

‘We do not wish to point fingers to a specific group…

Of course not!

…but we are talking about boys without a parent or guardian,’ Stockholm City police chief Elisabeth Anestad told Expressen.

Eriksdalsbadet, which is the biggest aquatics centre in Stockholm, has previously reported a spike in sexual assaults – mainly incidents involving boys and young men groping women. As a result, Stockholm police will now have uniformed police regularly patrolling the swimming centre, and the pool’s hot tubs are now segregated by sex.

It’s happening in Belgium, too:

It comes as a Belgian mayor announced that he would propose banning male refugees from a swimming pool for a month on Monday after complaints from female bathers.

And, not surprisingly, Germany:

The German town of Bornheim, 19 miles south of Cologne, temporarily banned male asylum seekers from its pool this month after receiving complaints of sexual harassment.

Last week, the historic baths Johannisbad baths in Zwickau, Saxony banned all migrants after male asylum seekers had been caught masturbating in a hot tub and sexually assaulting women.

Sweden has seen a dramatic increase in the number of Moroccan under-18s who apply for asylum without a parent or guardian in the past four years, with many later running away from the housing provided to live on the streets in the capital.

Stockholm police estimate that at least 200 Moroccan street children move in the area around the main train station in the centre of the capital, sleeping rough, and living off criminal activity.

‘These guys are a huge problem for us. They steal stuff everywhere and assault security guards at the central station,’ one police officer told SVT.

‘They grope girls between their legs, and slap them in the face when they protest. All police officers are aware of this. I would never let my children go to the central station. No officer would.’

Alexandra Mezher

Still in Sweden, a more tragic crime. Alexandra Mezher, a 22-year-old social worker who was working at a home for unaccompanied young refugees, was stabbed to death by one of them. He is said to be a 15-year-old Somali, but in fact his identity is unknown and no one knows how old he is. The reaction to the murder by left-wing Swedish officialdom was mixed:

[National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson]…said: ‘Well, you are of course distraught on behalf of everyone involved. Naturally, for the person killed and her family, but also for a lone young boy who commits such a heinous incident.

‘What has that person been through? Under what circumstances has he grown up? What is the trauma he carries?

‘This entire migration crisis shows how unfair life is in many parts of the world. We have to try to help solve this best we can.’

Most Swedes would say that the incident shows how unfair life was in Sweden, to poor Miss Mezher. But Eliasson’s sympathy for the murderer was not unique:

Eliasson is not the first senior political figure in Sweden to demand compassion for the 15-year-old boy being held on suspicion of murder.

Marie Osth Karlsson, a senior local government commissioner, said: ‘I also have to express sympathy for the man behind the crime, there is also a person behind it’

Both Eliasson and Osth Karlsson belong to the ruling Social Democrat party, which has been criticised in the past year for its handling of the migrant crisis.

You might think that is enough for one day. But here is one more, from Denmark. A 17-year-old girl was attacked near a refugee center by a man who tried to rape her. Fortunately, the girl had a can of pepper spray in her purse and fought off the attacker, who has not been caught. The upshot? The girl is to be prosecuted, apparently, for illegal possession of pepper spray. The case has sparked considerable controversy in Denmark.

We could go on, but let’s mercifully draw the curtain over events in Europe. We have here predators and prey, a familiar theme in nature. But even rabbits and wildebeest are smart enough to understand that they are prey and to try to defend themselves. European elites? The jury is out.

UPDATE: More information has come out about the murder of Alexandra Mezher, in part because the allegedly 15-year-old murderer has made his first court appearance. I am going to hazard a guess and speculate that the perpetrator, reported to be six feet tall, is older than 15:

It has also emerged that the perpetrator attacked another resident of the home for unaccompanied minors, and Ms. Mezher intervened to try to stop the fight. It was at that point that the perpetrator stabbed her to death. Ms. Mezher’s family says that she “had warned her mother she ‎was caring for ‘big powerful guys’ aged up to 24 in the shelter” for unaccompanied minors.